College students are facing a stricter application process to join the Communist Party of China (CPC), which will include submitting regular reports on their thinking and discussions with Party sponsors.

Experts said that the tough vetting shows the CPC's efforts in the past five years to increase the quality of Party members over merely expanding the membership.

College students reached by the Global Times said they have had to undergo stricter procedures from Party organizations in colleges before being officially admitted to the Party.

"I handed in reports about why I wanted to join the Party, and my willingness to join, to the Party organization in my school, which organized lectures on the Party for us. After passing a final test about knowledge of the Party, we were introduced to a sponsor for the Party," a junior student surnamed Zhang from Wuhan University of Technology told the Global Times.

Zhang said that she and the sponsor had regular discussions about her political thinking and how her studies were going before officially being allowed to fill in the application forms.

Student Party members reached more than 2.11 million by June 2016, accounting for 7.7 percent of the total number of students in colleges, and there were 79,600 Party branches in colleges, the People's Daily reported in May.

Applicants also have to answer questions in public to test their knowledge of the CPC before being taken in as members, news portal thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

The questions included "What's your opinion on the significance of setting up theXiongan New Areain Hebei Province?" and "What are the four characteristics of intra-Party political life?"

All the Party lectures and vetting are necessary and can help applicants understand their responsibilities as a Party member, said Ni Bowen, a graduate student at the School of Philosophy of Wuhan University.

"I was inspired by the historical figures in the Party's history to hand in my application form. But as I learned about the Party and during the tests, my knowledge about the purpose and nature of the Party has deepened. I now want to take an active part in the Party's endeavor [for China]," Ni told the Global Times.

A student surnamed Wang from the China Foreign Affairs University who went through a year-long vetting process said he understood why it was necessary.

"Strictly controlling the number of Party members and the vetting of applicants will help the Party remain pure, since it is part of the Party's self-purification moves together with the anti-corruption campaign and Party building."

Standardized assessments

Ni, who was admitted into the Party in 2012 and is now secretary of a Party branch in his school, said that "the quotas for admitting students into the Party have decreased with stricter vetting of their political thoughts. And assessments on applicants and Party members are more frequent and standardized."

"As the number of college students increases, more apply to join the Party, which means Party organizations must raise the bar, Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the Chongqing Committee of the CPC, told the Global Times.

Su noted that the process to admit the strongest candidates from universities via stricter vetting fits the CPC's emphasis on enhancing the quality of Party members since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012. "And it would help better implement the Party's resolutions on China's modernization," Su said.

The CPC had a total of 89.45 million members at the end of 2016, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee announced in a communiqué published ahead of the 96th anniversary of CPC's founding on July 1.

The growth rate of CPC membership has dropped while the structure of its members has improved since 2013, when the Party implemented a recruitment rule which stresses the quality of members while limiting the quantity, according to the communiqué.